Hmong refugees from Laos, with nowhere to go, fear being sent back

When Lao Teng and his wife, members of Laos' ethnic Hmong minority, fled their homeland last June, they had hoped that they could leave their fear of persecution behind.

Harsh reality quickly set in when they were arrested for illegal entry into Thailand upon their arrival at Huay Nam Khao, where about 8,000 other Hmong refugees have been living in limbo, wondering if their future holds a forced return to Laos.

Thailand classifies them as illegal immigrants despite their claims that they face persecution by the communist government of Laos due to their Vietnam War-era ties with the United States, and the bad blood that continues to this day.

Ironically, the U.S. itself has raised a new hurdle to their migration. Post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws have disqualified many Hmong refugees for resettlement, since their guerrilla activity, originally in support of U.S. aims and later in self-defense, technically qualifies them as terrorists.

This would make many ineligible for asylum or green cards, even though in 2000 Congress passed a law easing the citizenship requirements for the Hmong in recognition of their Vietnam-era efforts. Their supporters hope the law can be amended, or the Hmong given waivers.

"For far too long, the Hmong people have been dealing with the unintended negative consequences" of U.S. anti-terrorism laws, said Sen. Norm Coleman, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Certainly Hmong refugees deserve better than this."

He gave no timetable for if or when the Senate might consider reviewing U.S. policy.

In January, a group of 153 Hmong _ including Lao Teng's brother and two nephews _ were on the verge of being sent back to Laos until last-minute agreements were confirmed with the U.S., Australia, Canada and the Netherlands to consider resettling them.

Smaller groups _ including a batch of 26 children and one adult _ have been quietly sent back in the past few years, generally to unknown fates, though the Lao government says it does not mistreat the Hmong.

The risks of involuntary repatriation seem even greater now, since the Lao government in December said it would officially take back the Hmong, reversing an earlier position.

"I wonder if they will still kill us as soon as we get in. That constant doubt makes it difficult to have a good night's sleep," said Ma Wai, displaying scars on his shoulder and leg from what he said were gunshot wounds inflicted by Lao soldiers. He slipped into Thailand, along with his wife and uncle, two years ago.

"My uncle was one of the people secretly deported to Laos," he said. "No one has heard from them since they were sent back."

The Hmong were recruited in the 1960s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to fight on behalf of a pro-American government, only to find themselves all but abandoned after their communist enemies took over Laos in 1975.

More than 300,000 Laotian refugees, mostly Hmong, managed to flee into Thailand. Most later resettled in the United States and elsewhere, but thousands stayed behind, some adjusting to the new hardline regime and others staying in the jungle, where they faced continuing attacks.

Many lingered in Thai refugee camps. In May 2005, the last major camp was closed, and in what was supposed to be the final big movement of Hmong refugees, some 15,000 were relocated to the United States.

But thousands more slipped through the cracks, coming here to join an unofficial refugee settlement alongside a Thai Hmong community in Phetchabun, 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of the capital, Bangkok.

A few here have documentation proving a direct connection to the ill-fated U.S. war effort in Laos. For the most part, though, the refugees here can only lay tenuous claim to fleeing oppression and a lingering, almost invisible post-1975 conflict with the Lao government.

At most risk of being sent back are relative newcomers such as Lao Teng, 26, and his 24-year-old wife Li Jer, now four months pregnant.

They are among about 50 Hmong who arrived here in the past year and are being detained at the Ta Pon police station. More than 20 of them are under 15 years old, two are pregnant, and they share one bare room with nothing to sleep on but a cement floor.

About 100 others live in tents behind various other police stations in Phetchabun.

Slightly better off are the estimated 8,000 Hmong living in the squalid makeshift refugee settlement set along both sides of a mountainous road. Once integrated into a nearby Thai Hmong community, in June 2005 they were forced out of their established accommodations in an effort to pressure them to return to Laos.

In the immediate aftermath of that move, many were without any housing at all. A two-month-old girl died after she and her family spent a day and a night shelterless under occasional rain.

Now most families live in flimsy makeshift bamboo shacks with thatch roofs, but conditions are still crowded and unhealthy. Despite the circumstances, the community has a birthrate of around 25 children per month.

Some shacks house as many as a dozen people, causing communicable diseases such as flu and diarrhea to spread quickly, according to Margaret Wideau, a representative of the international medical assistance group Medecins Sans Frontieres. In winter, food is scarce.

Restrictions of movement outside the camp make it hard for them to provide for themselves, said Wideau.

Children, some of whom have lived here for more than two years, have no access to education because the only local public school can enroll only students who have Thai citizenship.

"The kids have little future here. The only thing that gets people going is a sense of hope that they will be resettled somewhere and this nightmare will end," Wideau said.

Before repatriation was halted earlier this year, Lao Teng had given up hope for a life free from a threat of persecution in Laos. In an act of desperation, he stabbed himself in the stomach with a four-inch (10-centimeter) nail-cutter and jammed in a fountain pen.

"I would rather die here than go back," he explained afterward. "We will be tortured and killed there. But even if they halt the deportations now, who can tell us when they might resume?"